"I Saw It! It's John Goodman! It's Huge!" 10 Cloverfield Lane Discussion

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > Cinema Discusso > "I Saw It! It's John Goodman! It's Huge!" 10 Cloverfield Lane Discussion

RandallODim: Dec 30, 2010; Another 1? Aww man...

Wow. I thought the ending was straightforward and perfect and couldn't imagine someone not getting it, but y'all have proved me wrong. Congratulations, you're as cowardly as Howard.

She's going to Houston to help. Because her arc, and the entire movie, is about whether it's better to run away or to fight. And the resolution is that, while running away can keep you alive, and is sometimes the right choice, you have to be ready and able to fight when it matters, in spite of the danger. There are ships because it is dangerous. She also just blew an entire one up with a bottle of whisky, a road map, and a lighter. Gee, maybe the big threat is actually less of a threat than it seems!

Shadokin posted:

I find it incredible that someone who claimed too see the movie twice managed too hear the radio chatter wrong both times.

Just watched it today. The radio clearly says north of baton Rouge is safe but Houston needs help, if you have medical or combat training they need you in houston. She then looks at a sign that says Houston left and turns left. It then pans out too show a ship hovering over a city that is in the same direction she's traveling in. Clearly a trap, I mean why else would the radio be telling people with combat training too go to a city that had an invaders ship above it?

I loving loved this movie. I saw one trailer that only really showed John Goodman being insane and went on a media black out with regards to it. The only expectation I had was for John Goodman too be amazing and it delivered so far beyond that.

'why would the resistance want people who can fight to go to the place where there's the things that need fighting against???'

You're an idiot.

Edit: unless you're actually saying the same thing as me, then sorry

RandallODim fucked around with this message at 16:00 on Mar 14, 2016

# ¿ Mar 14, 2016 15:41

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# ¿ May 23, 2024 06:58

RandallODim: Dec 30, 2010; Another 1? Aww man...

Jenny Angel posted:

I mean, if so, he's doing a pretty poo poo job and has been tricked into letting Trachtenberg make something much, much better, so

Yeah. He got one of the more subtext-heavy and optimistic Twilight Zone episodes instead!

Shadokin posted:

I'm saying the same thing as you are, that was meant too be read with heavy sarcasm. I don't really understand how Bibs can't comprehend it.

Sorry for not realizing and jumping on you, then; internet, text, sarcasm, etc.

# ¿ Mar 14, 2016 18:23

RandallODim: Dec 30, 2010; Another 1? Aww man...

Fat Pony posted:

A theory floating around the subreddit is that there was no Brittany, and Howard was essentially telling the truth the entire time. Emmet lied about it being a different girl because he was the one who trapped Meagan in the air filtration room and eventually killed her.

Support for this theory so far:
- Meagan's disappearance is a much simpler explanation than Howard kidnapping a girl, showing off the kidnapped girl's picture when someone else in the bunker could recognize her, calling her his daughter, and then happening to kidnap another girl at the very same time that aliens invade
- Emmett had inappropriate interest in Meagan (which is why Howard was so sensitive about NO TOUCHING)
- Howard's line, "I know what a traitor looks like" because he thinks that his wife kidnapped his daughter and fled to either DC or Chicago
- The pictures of Meagan were a school portrait (how would he have gotten ahold of another girl's school pictures?) and in the bunker itself (not locked away in the air filtration room)
- Emmett and Howard's clear animosity (was it really Emmett "knocking over a rack of food" in the very beginning, when Michelle is trapped in her room? Sounded like a fight to me.)
- Emmett would know all about the bunker, including that he could lock Meagan away in there without people looking for her
- Something is blocking the door to the air vent. Howard can't get it open and doesn't know why it's blocked
- Emmett didn't take his bus to college and kept himself "in a 40 mile radius"
- Emmett volunteers to go into the air shaft right away, even though his arm is broken
- Howard's line of, "I accept your apology" right before blowing Emmett's brains out refers to Emmett's inappropriate advances to Meagan more than to trying to get his gun

Overall, taking Howard as being truthful and Emmett as lying makes for a way more streamlined narrative.

Other people have already pointed out that this is not streamlining, but it really doesn't even make sense. How is Emmett staying close to where he ostensibly murdered someone proof that he did it? Wouldn't it make more sense for him to take the free ride that will get him away from it, and thus further from chances of being caught? And how would Emmett have gotten into the bunker to keep Meagan/Brittany there? He's not going to have copies of the keys. And, besides all that, how does any of this reconcile with the fact that there is a picture of Howard, with a different girl, in his book, and that he doesn't show that one to Michelle? If he isn't in the position of having mentally replaced Meagan with Brittany, what reason does he have to do that? The whole theory makes way less sense than just taking what the film presents at face value.

Really, this and Bibs's reading seem to fall into this weird void of 'things are more interesting/mature/deep if everything is poo poo and lies, and subverts your expectations' that seems to motivate a lot of bullshit fan theory readings.

SuperMechagodzilla posted:

People are getting dumb because the movie is about how to act on incomplete information without being an idiot or being paralyzed by indecision.

So, naturally, nerds spin insane conspiracy theories and get all scared because "what if Michelle is a reverse vampire and she can't survive in daylight??? We can't risk the possibility that she might get loose and eat everyone!"

The very basic point of the movie is that doesn't matter if Howard's conspiracy theory is accurate or not, because he is still pathologically obsessed with maintaining order. Likewise, it doesn't matter if Houston is safe or not. Michelle has made a decision to mod as much damage as she can.

"Recall, again, Lacan's outrageous statements that, even if what a jealous husband claims about his wife (that she sleeps around with other men) is all true, his jealousy is still pathological. Along the same lines, one could say that, even if most of the Nazi claims about the Jews were true (they exploit Germans, they seduce German girls), their anti-Semitism would still be (and was) pathological - because it represses the true reason the Nazis needed anti-Semitism in order to sustain their ideological position. So, in the case of anti-Semitism, knowledge about what the Jews "really are" is a fake, irrelevant, while the only knowledge at the place of truth is the knowledge about why a Nazi needs a figure of the Jew to sustain his ideological edifice. In this precise sense, the analyst's discourse produces the master signifier, the swerve of the patient's knowledge, the surplus element that situates the patient's knowledge at the level of truth: after the master signifier is produced, even if nothing changes at the level of knowledge, the same knowledge as before starts to function in a different mode."

_{-Zizek, "Jacques Lacan's Four Discourses"}

I love you, SMG, especially when your Zizek/Lacan citations are things I actually know and understand.

e:

Jenny Angel posted:

Dang, that's rough. It's a good thing they didn't write and direct the film 10 Cloverfield Lane, then

This is my favorite post in this thread so far.

# ¿ Mar 14, 2016 21:04

RandallODim: Dec 30, 2010; Another 1? Aww man...

AAB posted:

anyone else think it got super dark way drat fast once the air filtration unit thing exploded and the ship "saw" her at first?

also plenty of reason to believe Howard's dishonesty when he says he didn't have time to get any of the booze out of her car but has the bottle sitting in his truck when she is in the truck getting lifted by the ship

It had seemed to be getting closer to dusk the entire time, but yeah, things got way dark kinda fast, presumably to set up the whole 'lights from the house' bit.

Also, that second thing was one of my favorite parts. Of course the lying bastard lied about getting the booze.

1stGear posted:

I feel like if SMG is calling your theory stupid and saying you're reading way too deep, you should probably stop and take a long hard look at your posting.

Not even that he's reading too deep, but that he's reading things that aren't even there at all.

CelticPredator posted:

Monsters come in many forms.

One of those forms is a man.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4RuB3gT8t0

# ¿ Mar 15, 2016 01:03

RandallODim: Dec 30, 2010; Another 1? Aww man...

If either of those are what we would've gotten before the film got Cloverfielded, I'm incredibly happy it did, because both of those are much weaker than the ending we did get.

# ¿ Mar 24, 2016 10:51

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# ¿ May 23, 2024 06:58

RandallODim: Dec 30, 2010; Another 1? Aww man...

Tenzarin posted:

It was, the entire movie was about a nuclear attack. She would get out and see everyplace is hosed from nukes. They couldn't get the studio to sign off on that. Slap a "cloverfield" on it, They just pulled a 'Ridley Scott"!

See, Prometheus's blatant tie-in ending with the sudden Xenomorph was kinda dumb and out of place, but I wouldn't say the same about 10 Cloverfield Lane. It doesn't feel like some dumb franchise obligation, it just feels like a last genre reversal, and for me it made total sense thematically. Contrasted with Prometheus, which is all about unknowable mysteries and questions, suddenly ending with 'and this was the origin of the Xenomorphs the whole time, I guess!' which is a big wet fart of a note to end on if I ever saw one compared to the film that came before.

# ¿ May 15, 2016 18:07

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > Cinema Discusso > "I Saw It! It's John Goodman! It's Huge!" 10 Cloverfield Lane Discussion